The Kids Are Alright

Raising silkworms is a tough job, but it seems that I rather like doing it.  More than half way into their life cycle of about a month, the silkies have eating lots of mulberry leaves, shedding their outgrown skin and definitely getting bigger.  Here they were on Friday morning:

]Here they are today:

 The white ones are getting ready to shed their skins. The striped ones have already shed and they eat a LOT more.


 

Their appetites increase along with their size, so I gather more leaves each day.

Last weekend I went to the John C. Campbell Folk School for a English Country Dance weekend and took the little guys with me.  (It was really fun, but that's another story.)  Their home at that time was a recycled envelope box, which I placed inside a copier paper box.  They stayed in my room (luckily I did not have a roommate to negotiate with), but had to accompany me on Sunday as we had to get out of our housing by 9 am, but the event wasn't over until 1 pm.  I couldn't leave them in the car, but a copier paper box stashed under a bench doesn't seem to freak people out too much.  Some people did think I was a little bit crazy, but other folks were fascinated.

Sampson's Fleece

This weekend I attended my favorite part of the Mountain State Fair, the regional fair for Western North Carolina. Saturday was a busy day, but since the fleece show is the first order of the day, it fit quite nicely.  We got there while judging is still going on and I met up with Tami.  Tami runs the sheep show for SAFF and raises mostly Border Leicester sheep.    She had only entered a couple of fleeces, in the show but took a first & second in natural colored Border Leicester.  I took home Sampson's fleece, the blue ribbon winner.  It is soft and sweet in a lovely grey with brown tips.  It isn't very big - maybe 2 pounds and I already washed about half of it.  This will be my demo fleece at the Madison County Heritage Festival where I take my drum carder and let kids run the drum carder.

So what will I do with this not-very-big fleece? Well, I'm not sure.  My guess is that it will become yarn that will become hats that will go out in the universe.  In the mean time this will be my demo fleece at the Madison County Heritage Festival where I take my drum carder and let kids do a bit of carding.  It's a little Tom Sawyer-ish, but everybody enjoys it, including me.

In any case, I will happily wash, pick, card and spin this lovely fleece.  Thanks, Sampson and Tami!

Sheep to Shawl

As the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF) gets closer, we are still looking for some teams to compete in the Sheep to Shawl competition on Saturday, October 22, 2011.  A friendly competition, but there is a bit of money involved - - $100 to the winning team.  Just gather 6 like minded individuals to card and spin a bit of yarn and weave a beautiful shawl.  All in a day in front of a healthy number of fans in the delightfully rustic sales arena of the Western North Carolina Agricultural Center. 

All it takes is one weaver and a pre-warped loom, 4 spinners with their trusty wheels & carders (including one drum carder if you like),  and an educational liaison.  That's a fancy word for announcer.  That lucky person gets to tell the crowd what is going on as the fleece is sorted, picked, fluffed, carded, spun, plied? and woven.  It should be plenty of fun, but we need you to join us!

Does your guild, school, yarn shop or even Ravelry group have a team of 6 individuals ready to step up to the challenge of transforming a fleece - carding, spinning and weaving it - into a beautiful shawl in just a few hours?

If so, please contact me!!  I am the demonstration coordinator at this year's SAFF.  That means I have been working with vendors to do fiber demonstrations at their booths as well as setting up craft schools to have a presence at the  Drop in & Spin or Knit or Crochet (I call it Drop In & Whatever), Drop in and Weave with one of the regional guilds and of course, Sheep to Shawl.

Please mark your calendar to join us at SAFF.  In center stage at the Sheep to Shawl or around the edges, cheering on your favorite team!

Spinning Yarns

I've been on a spinning binge lately.  It seems to happen after a carding binge - and this time I have some nice batts to spin.  It's sort of like putting food in the freezer.  eventually you have to take it out and eat it.  The difference is that carded batts don't get freezer burn (though the white that you see here bit have sort of a basement-y smell before I washed it.  With plied skeins still on the bobbins and recent knitting aside, here it a bit of yarn that I made recently.

On the left is a big honkin' skein of a wool-mohair blend  from Bitsy Knits.  It's one of her custom carded rovings in a lovely blue-green color.  I don't have the label with me so I can't tell you the official name.  I got it in a gift exchange and finally got around to spinning it.  I didn't measure it, but it's big!  Just past that is a merino-alpaca blend that I carded myself a long while back and kind of forgot about.  When I was tidying up I found the box and though it was a bit musty smelling, it spun up fine and after a wee bath, it smells good too.

On the far right is one of 3 skeins of a Corriedale-like fiber from   Cherry Tree hill via Discontinued Brand Name Yarns.  The colorway is 'Irish Mist' but I am a bit tired of it, so I overdyed the last 6 ounces of the pound in blue, so the resulting roving is a lovely peacock blue-green.  Easy to spin, btw in case you have wondered about that roving.  I spin rather thick and it came out nicely squishy.

The deep blue is another overdye.  I spun it a while back - a natural grey carded with a medium blue wool and some angelina, but I didn't love it.  It was too grey with not enough blue to really pop, so into the dyepot it went.  I love it now - deep and heathery.  I rolled it into a ball this morning and brought it with me to knit at the SAFF board meeting tonight.  It is destined to become a Trailside hat.  I'll post pictures when I'm done.

I heard about a big destash yard sale over the weekend.  The flyer said there were 2 spinning wheels, 6 sowing [sic] machines and lots of yarn and fabric.  There was, indeed!  I was the first person there when she opened at 8 and bought a Lendrum double treadle (and a bunch of yarn!).  It's quite beautiful and it spins nicely, but by the size of the skeins above, you can see that I like fat yarn and BIG skeins.  So my trusty Louet S10 isn't going anywhere.  So far I've only spun 2 bobbins on the Lendrum & plied them on the Louet.  A nice combination, I think, particularly for smaller quantities.

Definitely Summer

There are a number of indicators that it's summer.  Well, it's hot out.  Today it may well hit 90 degrees F.  91 will break the record, but I'm ok if we fall short.

Yesterday was Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer in the US.  Thanks to the vets who keep us safe.  I really appreciate the men and women who died for what they believed in.

We cooked burgers on the grill.  I love burgers cooked outside with mayo and mustard and a slice of tomato, even if the tomatoes aren't very good yet.  We had a big salad, potato salad, sugar snap peas from the garden and peach shortcake.  It was wonderful!

My dyeing has slowed down a bit.  I dyed a good bit of roving for a fiber fair where my colleagues were vendors brought a lot of it back, so I'm caught up.  I am dyeing some colors I need - and washing and dyeing mohair locks.

I want to hang out in the basement - a clear sign of summer.  It's cool and dark and I can card fiber for later spinning.  I've also been doing a bit of de-cluttering again.   I'm hitting kitchenware, clothing and quilting fabric this time.

Knitting?  That too, is in summer slow-down mode.  A hat or 2 a week, I'll likely finish the June socks fairly soon, since they were recently pulled from the marination chamber.  I actually like to spin in the summer, so I'll have hand spun yarn come fall.  I finished 2 skeins last week and the recent carding will help in that department.

The garden is planted and weeded and mulched.  Not much to do except cut the grass every week or so, keep ahead of the weeds and pick the vegies and fruits as they ripen.  The peas and onions are pumping out, we are eating kale, the beans are climbing.  The poppies are beautiful, but I don't take any credit for that.  They simply grow and spread their seeds around.

One of the surest signs of summer is the mood on campus - pretty relaxed.  My day job is a 12-month staff gig at a small liberal arts college.  Although I am busy getting ready for my summer workshops for teachers, the overall place is a ghost town.  The faculty are gone, except when they are here to teach a class.

Summer time, and the livin' is easy!

Fiber Nights - Back-to-Back

Wednesday evenings are for spinning - at least most Wednesdays.  I find that setting this time aside, spinning with other reasonably serious spinners puts me with like minded people.  Our only connection is fiber.  I like them very much - many of us serve on the SAFF board of directors.  Kim took this picture last night.  She had just resolved an thorny issue with the IRS and had declared it Best Day EVER!  Our expressions say the same thing!

But tonight's fiber group is completely different.  We are a group of women who have dinner together once a month to eat, sometimes have wine and talk about life.  Sometimes work, frequently relationships, occassionally fiber.  One woman is an amazing quilter who crochets. Another is a very talented production weaver who dyes multi-colored warps & teaches lots of workshops.  The third likes about everything fiber and bead related.  She quilts and sews and crochets, maybe knits a little.  I think of myself as a spinner who dyes and knits.  We all have busy lives, work hard and came together through the music and dance scene.

We have lost a couple of members because of work commitments (if you are a special ed teacher who starts at 7:30 am, it's hard to carve out a week night - even if it's only once a month) and family responsibilities.  Anther person just didn't mesh with the group and stopped coming.

Sadly for us & happily for her, one of our group is moving away.  She has been one of our leaders so it is very difficult to lose her. We will be down to 3 and I'm not sure that that is enough to keep the momentum going.  But we are slow to invite new people.  We have invented a good bit of ourselves in this group and talk about our lives and families - the good and the bad.  One woman has gone through a particularly difficult divorce and this has been a safe outlet for her. We can't just bring in anyone.

So I guess that our group will have to figure it out.  With a few months before our amazing quilter (with the cutest dogs and the cleanest house!) leaves us, we will simply continue to share meals and lives and fiber!

Early Spring

Spring has come early to the mountains this year.  Although the nights are chilly, the days have been warm and sunny.  A few of my bulb-like friends have come up early, like these tiny iris.  Yesterday the first daffodil bloomed.  I put in a row of peas and planted some onion sets & the fall planted greens (collards and turnips) are up and happy - tasty too!  But as lovely as it is, I am resisting the temptation to get too carried away this early.  I'm afraid that I'll clean up all the old leaves and other litter only to get some serious cold.  We have had some of our worst snows in March.  Still, I spent a few hours in the garden this weekend.

But I'm spinning and dyeing and knitting, as evidenced by this tiny still life.  The rust colored yarn is the merino silk roving that I have been spinning for a future sweater.  The creamy yarn on the bobbin is part of the everlasting Falklands wool that I spin for both my own knitting and for the local shops.  The dark brown is a sweet lamb's fleece that I purchased at last year's fleece show and am hand processing.  It is also destined to be a sweater, though no time soon. The small skein of purple yarn is a sample for the local fiber shop.  I have nearly finished the tiny baby cardi.  Just a few bits left to do.  The I'd better send it off before he grows out of it.

This week the design work continues and the day job will keep me hopping, but in a good way.  My students have an assignment due and so do I!

Rare Purls: Knitting History

If you have an interest in how knitting has been part of culture for a long time, take a look at this article in the Toledo (OH) Blade. Writer Ellen Foley has been collecting images of knitting and other needlework and in now sharing her collection in the rare book room of the Toledo Public Library where it is now in display in the rare book room.

You can read more about it here.

Nothing that exciting going on at Smoky Mountain Fibers, though I did start spinning a lovely alpaca merino blend that I purchased at SAFF.  I purchased it from a local alpaca farmer here in Madison County, NC.  I have quite a bit of fiber ready to spin, but with no apparent purpose, other than it was lovely and I want to encourage local small business.  It is a very soft fiber, but you'd never know to look at it.  The color is a heathery golden brown - looks rustic, feels sweet!  One of those fibers that you have to pet to really understand.  My spinning pals at last night's spinning group - [hey - How come I was the only one spinning?  Everyone else was knitting.  What's up with that?] - were quite appreciative of its texture, color and ease of spinning.

I'm not sure what it will end up being, but as I have 8 ounces, I'll end up with enough yarn to do something with. I'll try to take some photos that will do justice to the subtle color.

Hello 2011

So many blogs have been starting the new year with resolutions, which includes revisiting last year's resolutions.  That can be a little dicey, particularly if your weren't all that successful.  I still might, but since I can only remember one resolution, I'll have to go with that one.  I'm almost afraid to look at my Big Plans for 2010.

My main resolution was to become a better spinner.  To be more mindful and to challenge myself to spin finer, more even yarns.  For a long time, I settled into my default bulky yarn - perfect for the quick & cozy hats that I do so love to make.  I think that I was afraid that I might loose my ability to spin the 'calm' that I needed to settle my monkey mind.  For me, spinning had become a way of not thinking, just mellowing out.  I blame grad school - I needed the mellow.

But as those days are behind me.  Now I want to think about my spinning and make better yarn.  Well, although I am not going for the Certificate of Total Fabulousness, I think that my yarn is definitely better.  More...shall we say...refined.  It is finer, smoother, more even.  But I still can whack out the fluffy stuff when I want to. Success?  I guess so.  Brilliant?  Hardly, but that's okay.

My 2011 resolutions seem to be personal, rather than fiber-related.  Kind of in the Wag More, Bark Less department. Possibly not fit for public display.  We'll try again tomorrow. No promises...

Success: 30 Hats in 30 Days!

I set a challenge for myself to knit 30 hats in the month of November.  With my hats in 3 shops, I need to keep my production up for the winter hat shopping season and this was a way to stay on or even ahead of schedule.  I did it!  It was close at the end, but I managed to knit a-hat-a-day.  On November 29th, with all 30 hats completed and logged into my handy dandy Excel spreadsheet, I cast on for a felt hat in a style that I've never made before.

I also made an effort to knit from the stash as much as possible and tore through several hundred yards, so I knit down the stash too.  However since part of knitting down the stash required me to purchase more yarns to go with the stash yarns, I didn't get too far out front of that.  But all in all, a fine effort.

Only one tiny problem - a good problem to have.  Almost as fast as I have been making hats, I have been delivering them to stores and they are selling!  Of course that is the point - I can't sell them if I don't have them!  Nor do they sell piling up in a nice stack in the studio.  And as I backed off the spinning, I have very little hand spun yarn to knit my always popular guy hats - so I am still a wee bit behind.

Thanksgiving weekend was busy here at the world headquarters of Smoky Mountain Fibers.  In addition to manic hat knitting, I did a bit of dyeing and carding and spinning.  I also visited a couple of my favorite local yarn shops (one on Black Friday - Hey, 30% off and I bought some lovely silk-merino spinning fiber for a sweater for me!), spun at the Locally Grown Gallery and shipped a healthy number of orders for the Etsy shop (Thank you very much!).

I also painted my bedroom, including 2 coats on the dreaded popcorn ceiling.  I'll spare you pictures.  Although I am very happy with the results, photos of dingy off white with drywall mud over the cracks  and photos of fresh off white aren't really that exciting to anyone other than me.

Tonight is spinning night at Friends & Fiberworks.  I'll be spinning some over-dyed blue-green that looks like a really iridescent peacock. A colorway that will never be duplicated, I can assure you.  Hope the yarn is half as pretty as the roving!

Something to Look Forward to in January: Winter Fiber Retreat in Asheville

Registration is now open for classes at the Winter Fiber Retreat in Asheville, NC.

Hosted by local yarn shop Friends and Fiberworks, this weekend of activities will take place on January 14-16, 2011.  A large variety of classes in knitting, spinning, weaving, felting, dyeing and lots more.  Great teachers - many of them teach at SAFF.  We spin each Wednesday evening at F&FW and the ideas were flowing freely the other evening.  Still being hatched: a sheep-to-shawl contests - my job is to make the rules!  Yikes!

Lisa has negotiated special hotel packages for people looking for a mid-winter get-away. Vendor space is still available too.  Here is the link:  http://friendsandfiberworks.com/winter-retreat

I’m teaching a couple of knitting and dyeing classes and there are plenty more that I’d love to take!  I just don't know how they will fit in, though I hope I can. 

Fresh New Yarns

I've been carding some blends for spinning lately - partly becuase I enjoy it, and partly because I have a good bit of fiber that needs some prep before it's ready to spin.  Here's a very pretty blue - I added some black fibers and some angelina - that's fine shiny nylon that adds a subtle bit of sparkles to the yarn.  I'm worried about overdoing it, so sometimes it's very subtle.

It came out nice - just as I thought it would.  3.5 ounces (100 grams) and 109 yards - so about a bulky weight.  It's a lovely shade of blue - perfect for someone with blue eyes.

The next yarn was a pleasant surprise.  Now it was a less-than-fabulous dark brown roving to start with, but it had a number of grey fibers that I didn't like.  So I overdyed some in burgundy and some in olive and they looked good.  The brown dye on brown roving came out ...well...brown.  I thought it needed some jazzing up, so I blended it with some samples from various PhatFiber Sampler boxes.  

There were a couple of very pretty red-orange samples and some peachy-gold that looked like they would work.  It turned out that the peach blended nicely, but the gold looked a bit jarring.  I took the batts to spinning night last week and was not happy - maybe even a bit embarrassed by my rather sorry looking yarn as it grew on the bobbin, but my fellow spinners we quite encouraging.  I thought that maybe their Southern politeness was clouding their judgment, but I was there to spin, so I soldiered on.  I plied it a day or two later, happy to get it off by bobbins so I could move on to something that I liked better.  It turned out to be just fine - the lighted bits add a depth that sursprised me.  4.1 ounces (116 grams) and 85 yards - so a bit a bulkier.

Both yarns are destined to become hats.  Still ahead of schedule.

A n Etsy Treasury: Rovings to Yearn For

My natural creamy roving made it into an Etsy Treasury yesterday, Rovings I Yearn For.   And all were quite... yearnable?  yearny? yearnarific?  OK really pretty - and I wanted to spin every one of them.    I did spin the creamy white last evening. It's my go-to white yarn that I make to sell in the local yarn shop and gallery and is a prime ingredient in my handspun handknit hats. And I am out of that very yarn!  I delivered 5 fresh skeins to Asheville Home Crafts a week or so back and have barely been back to the wheel.

The music and dance world has kept me quite busy lately.  After teaching an English Country Dance workshop at Feet Retreat  in late September and attending the SE Dance Leadership Conference the following weekend, I knit a few hats, but did not get much spun. Now, I love dancing to traditional music - almost as much as playing with fiber (or is it the other way around?).  So it's a tricky balance to keep all the balls in the air, particularly during my busy season at work, which is right now too.  This weekend is a return to fiber.  I'll be spinning and dyeing and knitting, oh my!

Spinning Calm

It seems that when I am super busy, spinning is what I want to do the most.  It forces me to slow down.  When I am spinning my default yarn, I can totally zone out and spin without thinking.  The prepared natural creamy fiber just flows through my hands and onto the wheel, creating the yarn that I love to knit with and my local yarn shops want to sell.

When I spin something trickier - hand blended merino-angora lately - I have to think - to concentrate - to be present.  Again, it slows me down to just make the yarn I want to make right now.

I'm quite busy right now with the several deadlines at the day job.  SAFF is nearly here and I have work to do for that.  I also am responsible for a dance event that needs my attention. Did anyone notice that it is fiber season? Smoky Mountain Fibers doesn't run itself, though I wouldn't mind if it did.

I love all the things that I do.  I don't want to drop a single one.  I know how to say no and not take on more responsibility.  So I spin.  I went back to graduate school a few years ago.  The last summer I took 3 classes so I could finish.  I worked on school starting in the early morning; went to my regular job; stayed late to do school work.  When I came home about 20 minutes of spinning brought me back to myself.

This evening I'll be joining old friends and new to spin at the local yarn shop Friends and Fiberworks.  I brought hand dyed merino roving in saturated shades of purple, blue and dark teal.  I like that it happens on Wednesday too.  A nice break in a busy work week.

So tonight I'll spin yarn; but mostly I'll spin calm. 

Big Puffy Yarns!

My New Year's resolution for 2009 was to spin more intentionally.  My default yarn was kind of big and puffy - perfect for the hats that I make for the Asheville HomeCrafts shop.  The patterns that I wrote a few years back were geared to beginning knitters who wanted semi-instant gratification.  This was yarn that I could spin eithout thinking and the hats knit up quickly.

But back in ought-nine, I felt that my spinning needed to get better - that is to say, thinner.  So I have concentrated on spinning merino wools, wool-silk blends and other fine wools into fine yarns.  I can do that now without much difficulty.  I have trained myself to spin skinnier yarn,  Now granted, I am not spinning 3 ply sock yarn.  Nothing wrong with that.  I have friends who spin 3-ply sock yarn - lovely yarn for lovely socks.  But I find I don't like to spin superwash yarn and I don't like to hand wash socks.  I am happy to buy sock yarn,, thank you very much!  Besides, I like the stripey sock yarns.

But I have a need to some yarn for my hats - the big puffy yarns that I do not make very often anymore.  Tonight is spinning night at Friends and Fiberworks and I will intentionally spin big puffy yarns. Not rank amateur out-of-control blobby yarn - just nice puffy yarn the way I used to.  Creamy white, fluffy yarn of Falklands wool.  Pretty yarn.  My yarn!

Little Bunny FooFoo

A few years ago I had an English Angora rabbit.  A red-eyed white, he was a rescue bunny who never quite got over his trauma.  He wasn't happy outside his cage, although eventually he did become relaxed and content while I groomed him, talking and singing as I brushed, plucked and clipped him.  He was around for about 3 years before he died of a kind of bunny stroke.  He was an excellent helper in the garden as he produced copious amounts of fertilizer. 

He grew lovely fiber too.  I even won an award for a hat that I spun and knitted from his lovely fuzzy wool.  However, I have not been tempted to get  a new bunny.  His cage and accessories went quickly to another friend who had bunny fever and continues to raise and breed them for fiber.

Another friend got a gray German Angora bunny at last year's SAFF.  Really, I tried to talk her out of it.  They are not cats with long ears and cool fiber. But Mrs. Simpson became part of her life and she likes her a lot.  Now my friend is an excellent knitter but a new spinner.  We have had a number of conversations about spinning, though I have never seen her spin.  But the conversations that we have had regarding angora spinning made me realize that spinning angora was beyond her skill level. 

Angora is hard!  I seldom spin it alone but usually blend it with a soft wool.  I always sandwiched it between layers of merino and sent it through the drum carder several times.

So that is what I have been doing with this lovely gray angora.  About 5 passes through the drum carder with white merino wool gave me this very pretty batt.  I did not pull out all the short pieces, so it is likely to be a wee bit bumpy.  But it did spin very nicely to a heavy worsted weight 2 ply yarn. I carded another batch with some darker gray wool roving and it it coming out very nicely as well. 

This time I am much fussier about the angora that I am carding.  The brown yarn in the photo is a purchased roving of chestnut angora and pale brown rambouillet wool.  Reasonably nice spinning and already carded for my convenience!

I passed both yarns on to Mrs. Simpson's bunny-mama and she was quite happy!  So much so that she asked if I would spin her angora forever in exchange for all the foo-fur I want.  I suggested she learn to card her own.  Not to be ungenerous, but wouldn't she rather take control of the whole process?  Of course!

Spinning and Dyeing and Knitting - Oh My!

Last week was very busy at the day job, facilitating a week-long workshop for teachers - hence the blog silence.  But I took my tired self home each evening and spun a little everyday and knit while I watched movies.  I have been knitting up stash yarn isnce spring and have been getting a bit tired of it.  I have made a decent dent in the stash, but frankly, it was getting a bit dull.  It was time to be a bit more creative, so I pulled out some handspun yarns and knitted a few hats for the upcoming fall hat inventory.

I also have been dyeing my 'stock colors,' semi-solids for grab bags,and some new colors as well.  The color you see here is 'Antique Roses,' a pale peachy-pinky-gold that is just lovely.

Last Saturday was cool and rainy, a perfect day to spend at the drum carder.  So I have been spinning as well, both some angora for a friend and pretty colors for the Locally Grown Gallery as well as for my own work.  So quiet, yes. Busy, Oh, yes!

Spinning Night

For the last few months I have been getting together with spinning friends to well...spin!  We have been meeting in each others homes, but this month we met at a new yarn shop in Asheville, Friends and Fiberworks.  I spun a hand-dyed, drum carded blend of wool and mohair in a darkly shaded blue green - with a bit of firestar in the mix. I did something I seldom do - I weighed the lot (6.4 oz.) and divided the batts into 'lighter' and 'darker.' Then I adjusted the batts to make the separate shades weigh the same.  My plan is to have a somewhat more even yarn at the end with fewer light and dark sections once I start knitting the yarn.  I believe it is destined to be a hat.

Here is the yarn on the bobbin of my trusty, circa mid-1980s  Louet S-10.  It spun quite nicely and should ply up to about a heavy worsted weight.  I like this yarn very much.  I'll try to remember to photograph it when I'm done.

Spinning night was as lovely as usual, but with a few new (and familiar faces).  It was fun to do it at a yarn shop as well.  I am a firm believer in spinning in public.  Each time I do it, I have people tell me that they have never seen it before.  Others tell me about a spinning wheel that has been in the family for generations.  One comment all spinners hear is, 'That's dying art!'  My response:  'Not while I'm around!' 

The orange socks are moving along nicely.  I'll have to check my Ravlelry projects and I'm sure it's no record, but I don't think I've knitted socks this quickly - ever!.  I'm now just a few rows shy of starting the toe on sock #2.  In fact, I think I'll start knitting right now.  Bye!

Independence Day Sale!

In honor of the 4th of July, I decided to celebrate by having a sale in my Etsy shop, http://www.etsy.com/shop/smokymountainfibers.  All Natural roving is 20% off.  It doesn't matter if you want sweet & creamy merino, rustic browns, or easy to spin Falklands. Any Amount - it's all 20% off.  This sale does not include shipping, and I will refund the discount to your Paypal account.  Just enter the code 'Independence' in your message to seller.  Pretty easy, eh?

I've been spinning Falklands roving lately.  It's creamy white and spins up soft and fluffy.  It takes dye well too but for now I just want the peace that pretty white yarn gives me.  I have 2 bobbins spun up so I think it's time for a bit of plying.  Look at me - I'm plying!

I'll likely spend the holiday in the garden, in the studio and playing with friends.  Might get to downtown Asheville for the fireworks - in the new Pack Square park - Yeah!!

Testing, testing...

Testing.  Blogger has been tempting me with new design templates every time I log in lately, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  I think I like the new version, but it does seem awfully green!.  I may tweak it a bit in the coming weeks, so don't be alarmed. 

A colleague was in town this week, so I gave her my best tour of Asheville.  It looks a lot like this, except that it was full of people.  Kids were romping in the fountains and pools.  The grownups were on blankets under the trees.  No special occasion - just a hot day in the city.

The workshop that I am teaching is going well.  Good prep and a terrific group of participants - a fine combination.  We will cut them loose tomorrow after presentations and lunch.  I'll do it again with another group in July.

Back to spinning every day.  Since my house is being reassembled (slowly and somewhat thoughtfully) I have carved out a place to spin.  I am much happier if I take some time to slow down and make a bit of yarn.  I'm also back to dyeing yarn.  I was  in the Asheville HomeCrafts the other day and they are happily selling my sock yarns, particularly greens.  So I have recently dyed an olive color and a teal.  I have a purple soaking now for it's second dye bath.  Looking forward to spending a bit of time at the dyepot tonight, both dyeing and planning for future dyeing.

I have knit hardly a stitch this week. Though I am reading sweater patterns so a swatch cannot be very far away.